Six Flags over Georgia – After the Flood

This past Sunday my family and I made a visit to just outside of downtown Atlanta.

Last week the amusement park as well as the entire metro Atlanta area had national attention as 12-18 inches of rain fell and caused massive flooding.  The entire main parking lot and parts of the park were underwater as the Chattahoochee River and Sweetwater Creek overflowed their banks.

The waters did recede and a massive cleaning operation began.  By the end of the week the park’s officials declared that the park was going to be open for the weekend including all of the major rides.  The AJC carried the story.

My brother and I both have season’s passes, and this past Sunday was the last day for us to use our bring-a-friend-for-free coupons, so we brought our parents for a visit to the park.  They aren’t into the coasters and thrill rides, but they both haven’t been inside of the place for several years now and wanted to visit it again.

On Sunday the weather was partly cloudy and nearly perfect.

The first thing we noticed was that the main parking lot itself was closed.

A row of cones blocked access to the normal drop-off area as well as the road to the main parking lot.  Instead, everybody was instructed to park in the special parking lot on the right side (near the Georgia Cyclone) close to the employee’s parking lot.  It was nice and peaceful at the front of the park as there weren’t cars on the curb, traffic cops monitoring people, or annoying mobs of people just standing there and being in the way of everybody else.

As far as the main parking lot, it really didn’t look that bad.  You could see it from the exit ramp of Batman: The Ride as well as going up the lift hill for Ninja.

We figured that the main lot was still a little bit too muddy and most likely unsanitary from the nasty river and flood water that covered the area.  The key thing to take note is that the main parking lot is one of the lowest areas on property and the Chattahoochee River is literally less than a hundred feet beyond those trees.

Other than the main parking lot being closed, was the rest of the park fully up and running as implied in the AJC’s article?

Not exactly.

The entire Lickskillet area of the park was closed including:  Go-Karts, Thomas Town, Sky Buckets, Wheelie, Lickskillet Stage and all of the food stands and shops.  Splashwater Falls and Thunder River were also closed, but those water rides were already closed for the season.  The same thing for Skull Island in the Cotton States area by the Scream Machine.  The Lickskillet section saw some of the worst flooding inside of the park, and I guessed that it wasn’t sanitary to have the park guests walking through that area yet.  I have no idea if it’ll be open again before the season finishes in just over a month.

You couldn’t even walk through the Lickskillet area.  The paths were blocked in a few areas and you could only access the rides and coasters in the Cotton States section by taking the bridge and pathway by Splashwater Falls.

The Great American Scream Machine had the most visible amount of flood damage.  Most of the valleys on the wooden roller coaster were completely underwater during the flood.  In fact, it was easy to see just how high the water rose as the bottom parts of the wooden supports were stained brown and some parts still had vegetation and other garbage attached to it.

In this next picture you can see part of the garbage left behind from the flood near the bottom of the first drop.  The left side of the lift hill and first drop for the Scream Machine was filled with trash! I had a perfect view of it while going up the lift hill on Ninja, but you couldn’t see the garbage from the other areas of the park.  I wish that I had my smaller camera with me on Ninja so it could have been documented.  Some of it is visible here if you look through the bottom of the wooden structure around the lake.

The best thing about being in the park on Sunday was that the crowds were very light.  I figured that most people were giving the park another week to clean itself and to also wait for the annual Fright Fest celebration to begin the following weekend.  The only part that stunk was that most of the roller coasters were only running with one train and others had a delayed opening.

• Georgia Cyclone – two trains

• Goliath – one train, occasional break-downs

• Georgia Scorcher – one train

• Dahlonega Mine Train – two trains

• Mind Bender – one train

• Batman:  The Ride – one train

• Wile E. Coyote Canyon Blaster – delayed opening

• Ninja – one train, delayed opening

• Great American Scream Machine – one train

• Superman Ultimate Flight – one train

Despite a few minor issues with the recent flooding (it was more amusing than anything, but then again I automatically lower my standards a few notches upon arriving at the park), it was still a rather enjoyable visit to the theme park.  Goliath is still an awesome roller coaster (the steep drops, smoothness and great speeds are a blast!) and most of the rides had a short wait.

Unfortunately, the employees at Six Flags for the most part suck.  These people really need some lessons on how to speak English intelligently and to at least look like they’re interested in their jobs and running the rides smoothly.  I guess that customer service must be optional since this is the only major amusement park within hours of one of the biggest cities in the Southeast.

Take this fine worker for example.

I don’t know why the workers were going around on the Hanson Cars, but this was the second one doing it in a row.  This was also one of the few rides that actually had a long line.

Were the workers doing some kind of a rotation?  Was it shift change?  Were those cars really broken and the workers were taking them off the track for repair?  Do the workers periodically take a spin on the ride for fun?

Who knows?  Who cares?  It’s standard Six Flags over Georgia behavior.

We also saw two workers in the loading station at the Ninja more interested in looking for turtles in the water than actually paying attention to the people disembarking & boarding the coaster train.  They had their backs to us and were busy spotting the local wildlife swimming around the ride’s supports.

Do I enjoy workers manning the games harassing me as I walk past them?  How about it when workers mumble or speak the “local lingo,” unable to speak clearly or even correctly pronounce the most basic words?  Certainly not.

One female teenage worker at the Canyon Blaster kiddie coaster tried to warn somebody to take off his hat as the train was pulling out of the station (I guess she didn’t see it as he was sitting there in the train, wearing it while they checked the lap bars), but for the life of her she couldn’t say the word “hat” correctly (it sounded something like “hey-at”.)  The guy looked back (a father riding with his young daughter) and had absolutely no idea what she was talking about even though she repeated herself several times.  For the record, his hat was fine and stayed on his head during the whole ride.

Some of the workers are friendly, good people, but many of the other people need some serious training on speaking properly and actually caring about doing their jobs correctly.  Six Flags doesn’t exactly have the highest standards when it comes to hiring the local talent.